I can think of many other things that my tax money could go to. Like lowering my property taxes or even my own personal taxes.

I was going to blog about the same thing after reading the headline on Newstalk's homepage. No need to now.

The producers of the WAM festival are claiming an attendance of 9,000 but I haven't seen any evidence of that at all. Photos in the StarPhoenix of presentations inside the tents show fewer than ten attendees. Your photos from outside the tent are empty as well. What a complete waste.

I might have taken my kids there for entertainment purposes (ie. look what the silly econuts believe) were scuttled by the "no parking for non-carpooling vehicles" rule. So, instead, we drove downtown and went shopping. Downtown was very busy yesterday.

The free concert(the weakerthans)obviously saved them from complete embarassment. I'm sure that if I offered a free concert from a pretty popular band, I would draw the same numbers. It would've been comforting to know that thier message and not the free concert drew the 9000 attendance.

Well, sure, but if you want to visit an event with plenty of vacant toilets and no lineups, there you go...

Maybe in future they'll call it the "We aren't all that many" festival, representing only the extreme outer fringes of the lunatic fringe.

I do not have an issue with the message the organizers of WAM were distributing, although I disagree with some of it. It is their right as citizens of this great country to express these positions. I truly object to tax payer funds being directed to these projects, and that the organizers were permitted by council to operate outside the original agreement by both parties. Admission, according to council, can now be coin collection. Councillor Hill even suggested that he was willing to pre-pay admissions for 40000 people by cutting a personal cheque for $400 (1 cent each, although he would have vastly overpaid). While Hill's offer may have been perceived as a great gesture by the WAM organizers, that simple offer makes a mockery of the cities policy in the funding arrangements that were agreed to by both parties.
Much of the talk on the grounds yesterday afternoon was when WAM was going to run next year (I took photo's also, of an empty beer garden too!). No admission charged (a $10 suggested donation), and talk of a multi year event, two areas that conflict with what this group agreed to when WAM sucured city financial support.
What is stopping other long time community organizations that run festivals/events in our city for asking for the same level of support from the city? On-going events and a small admission fee/coin collection now qualify under our cities policy: council has approved this change in policy by supporting the change for WAM.

How come noone wonders about the nature these people.

Sure the event might raise some awareness and get other people to act.

But one has to wonder about the people pushing the cause. Some of them might be able to walk to the downtown or take the bus. But even carpooling to the event let alone driving to from another town creates the very same carbon footprint they are supposedly raising awareness against. (Did all the bands walk down with their equipment? were they all from within a block radius?)

Think of the millions of dollars that went into concerts like live 8. And the millions more that went into getting people there. Even if the bands and all the others donated their time... Think about how much more money could have been donated if people had just sent the money they were going to spend on the ticket and transportation.....

Every time I see an even like this I think back to when I was about 8. My grandmother donated a $10 in my name to a charity as a part of my birthday gift. Today... 20 Years later... I still get requests for money from that charity along with some of their paraphernalia... It far outweighs the original donation that I didn't even make. So if a charity is willing to spend that much money to get me to donate a pittance more; Are they really doing what is best for their cause? OR just keeping telemarketers in jobs?

Likewise with any event like "we are many". Are they really benefiting the planet? Or are they just increasing their own carbon footprint and having fun while telling me I have to do less? At what point does actually following the cause exceed the need for "collections" and "awareness"???

We Are............ Some?

Many people I know attended "WAM" during the evening. When their visit was through, I asked many of them, What did you think of the "We Are Many" event? None of them had an answer. Most of them didn't even know WAM was happening. My friends all went to the "Weakerthans" Concert. That's probably what drew a crowd of a supposed 9,000. (a friend claims to have seen less than 1,000 heads)Furthermore, my friends say that "eco-nut" topics were not discussed in depth beyond mentioning what the event was for.

What a great way to break through to a young crowd

What a great way to appease the masses

I want my money back!

I was so mad I e-mailed my councilor, and the sponcers.

Kinda reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer gets a marijuana bill on a ballot, and then all the stoners forget to vote.

How can you pass any judgement on an event that you didn't attend? The intention of this event was to express the need for members of our community to change their habits, and also to provide the tools necessary for them to do so. It's unfortunate that you were unable to provide an audio feed from any of the 30 workshops and presentations offered from experts in various fields of environmental sustainability. On the first day of the event, an organiser expressed her concern that she didn't see many people in front of the main stage, only to discover that the workshops and info fair (where over 40 businesses, individuals, and non-profit organizations were given the opportunity to speak with festival attendees) were packed. The vibe of the weekend was overwhelmingly positive and inspiring. All things considered, the event was tremendously successful. It will be those who attended and took something from it who we'll be able to thank for a better, more connected community (and fewer traffic jams). If, in fact, Saskatoon is fortunate enough to have all of this knowledge at its fingertips again, I'd encourage anyone and everyone to take advantage of it. It's for everyone's benefit, and our community can only rise as far as its weakest link will let it.

Whoever snapped those photos was very strategic about where they stood. Too bad they weren't in the info fair when there were so many people you could hardly move or in a presentation where you could hardly find a seat or in the pact signing tent where children and their families were talking about what they were going to do to reduce their impact on the environment. This festival was about education and building community and it was extremely successful. By choosing to criticise instead of coming out and actually experiencing WAM for yourself, you all missed an opportunity to be part of something extremely unique, important, and special. Just ask Fred Penner.

I'm disappointed in the lack of connectedness that still exists in this community and the shrunken world-views that are causing the destruction of so many aspects of our society. I was inspired by the organisers who gave it their all to make change instead of sitting back and watching their world disintegrate. What are you doing to secure your chilren's future?

Hope you had fun shopping.

Mr. Gormley and other skeptics:

Regardless of whether or not you supported the initial decision of government agencies to support this event financially, you knew long ago that the money was committed. I'm disappointed that your stubborn opposition to the festival from the beginning prevented you from making the best of the situation. The festival was going to happen whether you liked it or not...why not encourage people to attend just in case there IS some merit to the thought that Saskatoon citizens would benefit from something like this? The more people this reached, the more impact it had. If "many" attended and decided to make the commitment to drastically reduce their contributions to the city landfill or limit driving their vehicles unnecessarily on the roads, how is that a negative thing...even (or especially) from the financial perspective of taxpayers?

You have access to a large demographic who would not normally attend an environmental event, and you could have encouraged them to make the best use of taxpayers' money possible. The people who put this thing together did so to reach the people who WOULD be turned off by the idea that they were encouraging people to carpool. That was the POINT. Encouragement from public figures such as yourself could have helped them see why it's necessary.

Regardless of our political or social beliefs, I don't see why you are so resistant to the kind of positive action that the organisers and attendees of this event are so desperately striving for. This event was not to benefit them solely but for you as well. Some people do strive to make things better simply for the sake of making things better. Why not take advantage of the work they're putting into this collective cause?

I read this blog and its responses on my Blackberry from my car in the Tim's drive-thru lane on 8th and McKercher and am writing this from the air conditioned comfort of my home with the TV on in the background...oh, and the dishwasher is running and I'm drying a batch of clothes for work tomorrow. I sinned and was by myself in my car all day today. Then again, I travel to earn a living and to ensure all the econuts get their organic food delivered to their neighbourhood store. I spent most of the weekend ogling all those powerful, carbon belching V8 muscle cars downtown. I plan to keep doing my share of recycling (milk jugs, plastics, paper products, etc) but I will not force this extremist environmental crap down anyone's throat and expect my city council to refrain from the same in the future by not granting my tax dollars to a giant waste hole like this festival.

To the 'anonymous' contributor regarding strategic photo taking - are you suggesting that there are a thousand or more people hiding behind one of those tents?
And did you just honestly suggest, in all seriousness, that Fred Penner be our voice of reason to confirm the validity of this event?

This event had little to do with "making things better" and everything to do with pushing green and leftist propaganda down people's throats and. as is usual for these people, all on the taxpayer's dime. These events are never designed as open discussions, but rather as soapboxes for the "we know what's best" crowd to tell everybody else (the ignorant masses) how they should live their lives.

1:45 and nobody there?

Perhaps you were unaware or forgot (yeah right!) that Stephane Dion had scheduled a town hall meeting at the WDM at 2:00, something that was of particular interest to those attending the W.A.M. fair.

Your bias is showing John.

To Art Moss - wow, yeah, those 300 people over at the "Town Hall Meeting" would have made such a huge difference - they literally would have FILLED that entire vast space of emptiness hey?

The fact that this event wasn't carried out downtown boggles my mind. They couldn't have (in my opinion) chosen a more difficult place in the city to get to for the majority of Saskatoon residents, especially by bike. Add on top of that, the fact that your only other options are to car pool with 3 or more people or use a bus service that isn't gauranteed to be running after the late evening concert. If this was downtown, I can gaurantee you they would double attendance, particularly from those who work downtown or go to shop downtown. It's easier to get to by both bus and bike (the two preferred modes of transportation environmentally speaking). This would also increase the number of non-econuts checking out the displays because they happen to be passing by, or they have nothing to do on their lunch/coffee breaks. And is that not the point of this whole event??

I spent the weekend at the We Are Many festival at one of the booths in the Info Fair tent and can tell you it was one of the busiest events of its kind I have attended. There were somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50 different organizations displaying information and the traffic was constant.

The site was large and the crowd looked dispersed (something I would have done differently) but at points during the weekend was bustling with activity from the stage, through the various tents and in the beer gardens. I don't doubt that there were several thousand, likely close to 10,000 people who visited the festival over the weekend (my estimates on Saturday alone was over 5000 - remember there were nearly 30 hours of events). Saturday and Sunday inside the tent were very busy (on Friday the weather kept people away).

I would have liked to have seen a larger crowd myself - the 25,000 the organizers hoped for - but I also know that this is a first time anyone has tried something like this and the event was organized by people who did not have a lot of experience in marketing and promotion. To thier significant credit the festival was well organized, they raised all the money for the festival through a lot of hard work, tried to do things differently and in alignment with the principles of the festival (i.e. encourage people to carpool, take the bus, ride thier bikes - I am sure people would have been screaming hipocrisy, if they had opened up huge parking lots for cars at the Exhibition grounds for the festival), and involved the work of a lot of young people who want to make the world a better place.

The more folks jump on these young organizers and tell them that they are wasting taxpayers dollars (really very few dollars in the great scheme of things - maybe 10 cents per person in the province or a dollar per person in the city), the more we send a message to young people in general that they should sit down and shut up and not care about the world around them. That's not a message that I want to be sending and it is a dangerous one in a world where our generation (30 somethings and younger) is facing some serious consequences because of the choices of the generations that came before.

There will be those who continue to balk at these efforts from their closed-minded positions and there will be those who continue to take action to help create a more livable world. History may prove that the former fade into obscurity while the latter are credited for at least trying to leave a livable planet for our children. Whether we succeed or not depends greatly on whether people abandon their apathy and cynicism, stop thinking exclusively about thier own interests and open up a real dialogue about how we face the choices ahead.

So you are saying that all of the people that were going to come out were, in fact, at a scheduled town hall with Dion? That would be the same town hall that had an attendance of 300 people? I don't think that it is Johns bias that is showing, more like your poor skills as a lefty apologist.

To all you who claim there were hundreds and even thousands of people at this event....Where are your pictures?

what does saving the environment have to do with politics? those of you saying that this was a lefty event (i believe john put it so delicately as "commie-fest" when he formed his original opinion) only hurt your case as (i'm assuming) right-wing supporters.

our earth is shared by everyone. members of all political parties were welcome and attended the event.

this festival was about education, not propaganda. what's wrong with tax dollars going to education? as far as remembering this event when your roads aren't getting fixed, consider the fact that one of the outcomes of what this festival was proposing is FEWER cars on the roads which means less damage and need for continuous upkeep and repair. the money that went to this festival couldn't even fix a road. also, tax money given to this event (22 500) (while appreciated by those who support it) made up only a small portion of what was spent. consider the 500 THOUSAND DOLLARS that was spent on turning the Victoria Bridge into a disco hall. Where were you, then?

THE VERY FACT THAT PEOPLE ARE POSTING SUCH NEGATIVE COMMENTS ON HERE IMPLYING THAT ONLY "ECO-NUTS" SHOULD OR DO CARE ABOUT THE SAD STATE OF OUR ENVIRONMENT ONLY VALIDATES THE FESTIVAL MORE.

Time was set aside during all workshops for open discussion. opposing views were encouraged. even within the "eco-nut" community you have people who differ in opinions about how to go about saving our planet.

no one likes being told what to do. the problem is that everyone already knows what we need to do. the purpose of the festival was not simply to convince the general population that something needs to be done (this has been proven time and time again and is no different regardless of where you stand politically -even Bush is on board, now!), but to offer empowerment and know-how for those who are ready to act.

you'll see...really. regardless of what motivates you (wealth, health, whatever...), you or your children WILL be directly affected by something that will make you take notice of why we all so desperately need you to see why this is important.

I attended We Are Many Festival on both Friday and Saturday, and most workshops and the ecofair were very well attended, even when the weather was chilly on Friday.
I strongly support WAM, and my tax money being spent on environmental initiatives, because, if human does change the way we live, ie greatly reduce our carbon footprint and our reliance on oil and other fossil fuels, we and coming generations will be serious trouble! The artic is already melting and the climate is likely to become ever more unstable, which will have a negative effect on all our healths and food supply.
We are also extracting oil from the earth at or close to the maximum rate we will ever be able to extract it, and so the price of oil and hence gas is going to keep going up and up. (see http://www.oildepletionprotocol.org/ or google "peak oil")

For all our well being, people need to be made aware of these issues!

The urge to bash 'leftyism' is so pervasive I'm not sure anyone has stopped to think about one of the underlying messages present in this event. I don't think anyone (at a minimum, an EXTREME minority) is suggesting that we get rid of cars and cancel classic auto shows and do away with air conditioning etc. Instead, what is being said is that it is likely a good idea to conserve energy in ways which are not particularly inconvenient (compost vs. garbage, cfl vs incandescent, building materials in NEW homes, investing in efficient NEW vehicles/industrial processes, etc. so that in the future we ARE able to continue to live lives in a similarly luxurious manner to what we do now.

The idea is that by making very small changes now (in some cases requiring LESS work on our part, like not washing clothes/bedding/towels more than necessary) we will be able to continue to enjoy our privileges, as will future generations.

If the idea that energy is ultimately limited is "lefty garbage" then you should really brush up on the following areas: basic physics, basic geophysics. Useable energy is not unlimited, and this is not a lefty lie. This is not global warming / peak oil talk, it is a basic fact about the inefficiencies involved in energy use in a world with an increasing energy appetite.

Well, if the contest was about how many slack-jawed yokels wandered around to stare at things like shiny chunks of metal, then Cruise Weekend wins. If we're comparing the importance of the message, the WAM festival was far and above the better event.
That the park wasn't filled to capacity every hour of every day it was on, is not the point Gormley. Basing the success of taxpayer dollars on that factor alone is as ignorant as fawning over a parked car. If WAM enlightened even a few to make changes in how they treat the environment, then it was a success.
The people who should be most embarrassed are those who thought so little of the environment that they couldn't bother to take some time to try educating themselves. What your photos don't show is the inside the main tent, where the displays were set up, and where many people gathered to learn about something far more important than the number of cylinders in some lame vehicles taking part in an event hosted by an even more lame radio station.

If ignorance is truly bliss, then Gormley and the lackies who have replied on this post in support of his narrow-minded rant must be wearing non-stop grins.

It isn't fair that the only two pictures that show the event were taken by a Gormley cohort, so I suggest you all head over to the WAM website to see a few more pictures for yourself.

http://www.wearemanyfestival.com/multimedia/wam-the-festival/

We will be posting more as time goes on, so keep an eye out for more the many.

Might want to change the title of this thread, John.

How many of our tax dollars are going to be spent on your buddy Steve Harper's election, Gormley?

This is coming from someone who saw this festival as a means to improve my impact on the environment. I am one of the many people who feel guilty for not doing enough to preserve and protect our home. I have been too lazy to sacrifice simple pleasures to ensure my grandchildren have a place to live. I looked forward to this event for education and inspiration.

I attended all three days with my parents, my husband, and my two year old. We experienced as much as possible and had so much fun! I’m confused about why anyone would be outwardly opposed to this idea. Most of us, whether or not we are willing to accept responsibility, know that changes need to occur. WAM was an opportunity to learn the most effective and convenient ways to adjust our lives. I never felt judged or disapproved of in any way. All of the friendly and helpful volunteers I encountered in my three days (18+ hours) at WAM seemed very appreciative of my participation. Wasn’t that the point?

When I went home on Sunday evening, I left with the knowledge I knew I was missing (and then some), and the motivation to follow through with the “pact” I made with WAM. I also felt very good about having carpooled all weekend, when I otherwise probably wouldn’t have. I loved the limited parking idea and reduced bus fares, by the way! For me, it was a sobering (but gentle) reminder that I need to be more mindful and aware. Big deal… carpool once, walk a little, dust off your bike. It feels good.

Even during shivery hours on Friday the mood was one of overall friendliness and cheer among us festival goers. Beautiful Diefenbaker Park was filled with people celebrating our planet, their lives, and the lives of others. This was a free event for all to attend, aimed at reaching as many people as possible with an inarguably important (the most important?) message. It was imagined, created and presented by a group of young people who passionately dedicated their lives, not for any personal gain, but to making positive change. My family never felt confronted by anyone, nor were there any opinions imposed on us. The information was there to be had if desired, and a great many of us seemed to desire it. It was a truly positive experience!

I wish I could post a few photos of my own. They tell a completely different story than the two above.

Surely John, you aren't saying that science is based on popularity. Are you?

I see you still have your catalog of 'appeals to emotion' fallacies nearby.